The ultimate master in the city

Chapter 44 Clay Figures

The old man's surname is Wang. He is a businessman. He has a granddaughter named Wang Xin, who is nineteen years old and just started college.

A few days ago, on the weekend, Wang Xin and some classmates went to Beimang Mountain in the suburbs for a trip. When they were halfway up the mountain, it suddenly started to rain heavily. The girls ran into a ravine in a panic. In the rain and mist, they saw a small temple in front of them and rushed in.

The temple was of unknown age, covered in cobwebs and dust, and was in a terrible state of disrepair. Wang Xin and the others took out tissues and swept a clean spot on the floor, then sat down and played on their phones while waiting for the rain to stop.

Outside, it was pouring rain and the light was dim. Wang Xin played on her phone for a while and then got bored, so she casually looked around the dilapidated temple and found that the stone eyes of the gray clay sculpture at the very back were crystal clear and very beautiful.

Curious, she went over and pried at it. To her surprise, she pried off the clay eye that had been sculpted. It looked neither gold nor jade, with a restrained luster. It had a pupil and whites of the eye, and it was very lifelike. It was also cool to the touch. She didn't know what material it was, but she thought it was probably a good thing. She then pried off the other eye as well, put the two together, and put them in her bag.

Not long after, the rain stopped, and the group left the mountain. After parting ways with his classmates, Wang Xin returned home and proudly showed his family a pair of clay stone eyes. The Wang family found it strange; they were a wealthy family and had seen all kinds of gold and silver jewelry, but they had never heard of the material used for these stone eyes.

Old Man Wang asked Wang Xin where he got this thing from, and Wang Xin told the truth, saying that he had taken it from the "clay bodhisattva" statue in the dilapidated temple in Beimang Mountain.

Although Old Man Wang was not a believer in Buddhism or gods, he was knowledgeable and had seen many strange things. He felt that this thing was ominous, so he took it from Wang Xin and put it in a jade plate in the hall, covered it with a cloth, and planned to ask a friend to take a look in a few days.

That evening, after dinner, Old Wang went to bed early. He had a vague dream in which a man with a pointed mouth, monkey-like cheeks, and bloodshot, eyeless eyes angrily asked him, "Where did you hide my eyes?"

Old Wang was terrified and hurriedly replied, "It's in a plate in the hall. You can see it by lifting the cloth."

The man snorted and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

When he woke up in the morning, Old Wang wiped away his cold sweat. He felt that the dream was too strange. Thinking of the pair of stone eyes, he went downstairs to take a look. When he saw them, he broke out in a cold sweat. The cloth on the plate had been lifted, and the pair of stone eyes in the plate were gone. There was also a row of wet, strange muddy footprints on the ground, leading all the way to the gate.

Soon, the family members got up one after another. They found it strange to see Old Wang standing there motionless and dry. When they asked what was wrong, they were all quite frightened.

Old Wang told his family that this was strange, and that they had probably encountered something unclean. He urged them to wake Xiao Xin up and ask which temple it was, so they could go burn incense and apologize.

Old Wang's daughter-in-law rushed to Wang Xin's room, but soon returned covered in sweat, saying that something had happened to Xiao Xin and she couldn't wake her up no matter how much she called.

When the family went upstairs, they found that Wang Xin's jaw was clenched, her face was pale, and she could not be woken up no matter how they called her.

Wang Xin was then taken to the hospital, but after a day of intensive care, she could not be woken up, and the doctors could not find anything wrong with her.

Old Wang suspected that this was because he had offended the owners of the stone-eyed creatures, and that it was not something an ordinary doctor could cure. So he simply took his granddaughter home and, with his men, prepared paper money, incense, and offerings to go to Beimang Mountain to find a dilapidated temple. Strangely, Beimang Mountain was not very big, but even after dozens of people searched for a whole day, they still couldn't find any dilapidated temple.

Old Wang suspected that his granddaughter might have remembered the wrong place, so he found several of the female classmates who had gone on the trip with Wang Xin and asked them to lead the way, but they still couldn't find it.

Three days had passed, and the Wang family was still worried and didn't know what to do. That night, in the middle of the night, Wang Xin suddenly woke up.

Old Wang and his family were very happy and asked her what had happened and why she had fainted.

Wang Xin said something strange to her family: Hei Wu Jun said that I had gouged out his eyes and that we were destined to be together. He took me to his house and asked me to be his wife. I didn't want to, so I lied to him and said that I needed my parents' and grandfather's consent. So he sent me back. Now he has asked a matchmaker to come to our door, and they should be here soon.

The Wang family was in a panic, not knowing how to understand this terrible and bizarre thing.

Just then, there was a knock on the door downstairs.

The whole family was startled and no one dared to move.

The knocking continued at a leisurely pace.

Old Wang thought to himself that there was no escaping this trouble, and things couldn't go on like this, so he carefully took his son downstairs and opened the door.

Standing outside was a boy of about fifteen or sixteen, with strikingly beautiful features, even more beautiful than a girl. He carried a pile of gifts and spoke with impeccable manners. "Young man Meng Le, I've been asked to act as matchmaker!"

Old Wang and his son both knew that the boy was not human. They felt their scalps tingle and their backs go cold. They didn't dare to say anything and stammered as they stepped aside.

The boy entered the house, placed the gifts on the table, looked around, then turned back, clasped his hands in a fist and said, "Your daughter is destined to meet Lord Black Crow. I hope that you, sir, and this brother will agree to this, so that it may become a beautiful story."

Old Wang and his son dared not say no. What if the other party got angry and ate their whole family? They hurriedly nodded tremblingly.

The boy said a lot more nice things, then smiled and said, "Since that's the case, there's no time like the present, let's do it tonight! Congratulations! Goodbye, sir!"

With that, he vanished in a flash.

Old Wang and his son breathed a sigh of relief, only to realize that they were covered in cold sweat, as if they had just been pulled out of the water.

The boy's family upstairs heard what he said, and for a moment they looked at each other, not knowing what to do.

The whole family then huddled together in Wang Xin's room to keep watch. About an hour later, the wind picked up outside. The family forced themselves to stay alert and cautiously looked around, but before they knew it, they all fell asleep, and they didn't know how they fell asleep.

The next morning, Old Man Wang found that his family had all gone back to the sofa on the first floor. He quickly woke them up one by one and then went upstairs to check on Wang Xin. They found the room in a mess and the girl was unconscious.

"From that day on, Black Crow came every two days. We couldn't even see what he looked like. We would fall asleep as soon as he arrived."

Old Wang looked distressed and said with reddened eyes, "Don't be fooled by the number of young men I've brought. They're all useless. They'll all faint as soon as Black Crow Lord arrives."

After Old Man Wang finished speaking, Monk Yuanzhi felt a chill run down his spine and couldn't say anything like "I already know the whole story." He had no confidence in this matter at all, so he could only look at Zhou Fengchen blankly.

Zhou Fengchen frowned upon hearing this, thought for a moment, and asked, "You mentioned earlier that you consulted two gentlemen. How did they handle it?"

Old Wang's son continued, "The first time they set up the altar and performed the ritual, we fell asleep while they were doing it. When we woke up in the morning, the altar was still there, but the person was gone. At noon, we found him dead in a pond not far away. The second time they set up an exorcism array, but we still fainted. The next day, the array was still there, but the master was gone. We found him dead in a public toilet two streets away."

Zhou Fengchen nodded and then asked, "Is Lord Black Crow coming tonight?"

Old Wang glanced at the time, swallowed hard, and said, "They should be here in about an hour!"